All posts filed under: DIY

New Project – The 70’s Flat

Published by Karen Knox

Another project, another two bedroom flat and another excitable homeowner who’s desperate to finish all the works by this time last week. Let me show you around this 70’s apartment. The Floorplan The flat is a great size for this young professional. There’s a lovely long hallway with two good sized double bedrooms off to the side, at the end there’s a small but functional bathroom with large storage cupboard, and to the right the hallway leads into a large open-plan living space with small kitchen just off the dining area. In terms of any structural changes, there’s no scope due to the agreements and clauses in the leasehold (which sucks as I had some ripper ideas) but there’s certainly plenty of opportunities to turn this tired flat into a very cool new home. I’m going to share the plans for each room so you can get a feel for the place. Let’s start with the open plan living space: Estate agent pics A lovely large, light and bright, dual aspect, L-shaped room. Ample space …

How to build your own garden building – aka ‘The Manporium’

Published by Karen Knox

Hello everyone, apologies for the radio silence this week, it has been a ridiculously busy week AND i’ve been waiting for my husband to pull his finger out and finish writing something. Yes, this week everyone, you will get to read the design ramblings of him indoors (or should I say, “him outdoors”). He’s finally sent in his homework…. i’ve had a good read, and actually it’s really good (she says begrudgingly). It’s about how he made his own garden workshop which is perfect if you’re someone looking for inspiration on how to build your own garden building/workshop/man cave/she-shed/home office/garden pod…. so many names for these additional rooms. So without further ado… Iiiiiiiit’s Mr Making Spaces! **crowd goes wild** ” What’s that…you didn’t sign up for this? You didn’t. Sorry to invade this sacrosanct space of beautiful interiors, design and styling. I’m here to talk about anti-style. Yes…it’s the world of sheds. During my 39 years on this planet, I’ve learned a few things about life. Here are some: Men like a bit of solitude now …

My Ikea Pax Hack – The Nude Bedroom Update

Published by Karen Knox

Hello there, and welcome to the other side of our Nude Bedroom. Today i’m sharing our new wardrobes. Doesn’t sound that exciting does it? But we’re both super excited to have said goodbye to our old ones… … they looked lovely, but there were a bugger to use. The handleless drawers were on wooden runners, so when full of clothes, as most wardrobes are, they were way too heavy to open with ease. Those slim recessed handles were a nightmare for when you’d had your nails done, having to claw your fingers into the recess and heave the drawers open to grab a clean vest. Not cool, Derek. Not cool. Pic – Katie Lee for MADE There was also a lot of wasted space. Something I desperately needed more of. This one wardrobe was certainly not enough for my extensive collection of blue jeans, over sized black tops and boyfriend cardigans. So they were sold on eBay and we used the money from those to build our very own dream storage solution using the Ikea Pax …

Making Spaces with Quick-Step

Published by Karen Knox

It’s been all go here at Making Spaces HQ with the makeover of our master bedroom. Last time I wrote about it, i’d just about finished all of the decorating. Remember? Benjamin Moore – Fox Hedge Tan In the grand scheme of things, the painting was by far the easiest bit to sort. I also kinda like that job, very therapeutic I find. Once that big job was done it was over to the hubster to crack on with taking up the oak flooring and lay our new Burned Planks flooring from Quick-Step. The Quick-Step ‘Impressive’ range comes in 8mm or 12mm (Ultra) boards, where as the solid oak boards closer to 18mm. So, to give us a more consistent floor height over the bedroom threshold onto the landing, we opted for the 12mm boards, as well as leaving the old underlay down and using this as our sub floor. Fitting the new underlay was super easy to do (well it was for me, as I wasn’t doing it). We opted for the TransitSound underlay which …

Benjamin Moore #paintlikenoother

Published by Karen Knox

Sorry for not posting last week. I’m sure you were all refreshing your inboxes every 30 minutes wondering where my weekly post was? Call off the search party everyone, i’m fine, if a little stiff around the ole joints. I’ve done the equivalent of 39 step classes this weekend, working hard on the decorating of our bedroom makeover. Remember our proposed new bedroom colour that divided opinion? Nude Bedroom – Moodboard Now let me make it clear from the off so the ASA don’t come and arrest me, I was gifted the paint for this project. BUT I chose the paint and colour, Benjamin Moore‘s ‘Fox Hedge Tan’, before i’d secured a collaboration. I’ve been wanting to try Benjamin Moore’s paints for ages and always prefer to try new products in my own home before recommending them to others to try in theirs. After i’d bought a tester and settled on the colour, I emailed Benjamin Moore to see if they’d let me review their paints on the blog in exchange for a few litres of …

Growing up with Meble Vox & Wayfair

Published by Karen Knox

Remember Charlie’s room? This time last year, I had this beast built. The wall of storage. Best. Thing. Ever. (read all about that here) Then we upgraded his cot bed to these single stacking beds, perfect for sleepovers (read about those here) Then it was time to find a new wardrobe and chest of drawers… and it’s taken me a year. ONE YEAR to find something that floated my boat. This was the wishlist: White and/or blonde wood Something that didn’t look like kids’ furniture, but would equally be at home in a kids’ room Decent quality, something that would last him until the day he moves out (so, about another 23 years). A wardrobe with full hanging rail. For some reason, a lot of kids’ wardrobes have a half rail and shelves down the side. What’s that about?? Around £600ish for the two I’d done the whole Ikea shlep… endless internet dredging… and what I found was kid’s furniture that was affordable but looked a bit ’90’s naff’, childish or had a half length …

The Loo. Toilet. Whatever you call it, our WC gets a makeover

Published by Karen Knox

It’s often the most overlooked room of the house. Not even big enough to warrant its own basin, mirror or any extraneous faffing. The separate bathroom and loo combo leaves a lot of people with a space that’s not big enough to swing a small hamster, never mind a cat. This is our first floor layout… since we had the loft converted and sacked off the second smallest room in the house for our dream staircase. You can see on the floorplan, our bathroom and WC are two separate spaces. And despite most people’s preference to knock these spaces into one to make a larger family bathroom, we didn’t want to do that with the house only having one loo when we moved in. And actually, I still prefer the layout like this. I like not having the loo in the bathroom. Especially with a five year old in the house whose aim isn’t always 100% accurate. Sure, our bathroom isn’t large, but for a family of three it’s more than adequate. More so now …

Let’s talk about white UPVC (and how to paint it)

Published by Karen Knox

I know a lot of you guys hate your own white UPVC, because you were all messaging me this week on Instagram when I was sharing my recent DIY project on Insta Stories. I’m not the only hater out there it seems. Once the talk of the town, white UPVC doors and windows revolutionised the whole glazing and door industry back in the 80’s. Maintenance free, double glazed units were fitted in nearly every house and home in the country. However, it seems there’s not a lot people out there that still want their white plastic frames and doors. Not in their current state anyway. Including me. There I am standing in front of my door, fake laughing for a MADE.COM shoot. Praying they won’t use this one as i’m so embarrassed by the front of our house. I’m super proud of what we’ve managed to do inside our little 3 bed semi, but the outside was always last on the list. And this year is the year for that. If you remember, we’d already …

How to Connect your Rooms – Choosing a Colour Palette

Published by Karen Knox

Hello everyone, I’m back this week with a little look at how to connect your rooms at home. What does that mean exactly? One of the keys to a successful home interior is having a sense of cohesion and “flow”. The rooms and spaces between should connect with the surrounding ones. For example, let’s say you’ve got three bedrooms on a floor, like most people and you want them all to have their own identity but also not look like a patchwork quilt from the landing, it’s good to consider how these spaces connect as a whole. Often, people run the flooring throughout to make the overall space feel larger. We all know that the less breaks in a colour or pattern, the better, as the eye continues further along the space. Flooring continues on from our loft bedroom to landing with no threshold to break the line’s eye. Another way to do is is choose a colour palette, and stick to that for a floor, even better, a whole house if you’re being really clever. …

The Copper Bedroom – Final Reveal

Published by Karen Knox

Just like buses, you wait for ages, in the rain, getting puddle mud on the back of your skinny jeans, standing with damp denim stuck to your leg… then three of the double-decker blighters come all at once. My third final reveal post in as many weeks. That’s got to be some kind of record. The Monochrome Family Bathroom, then the Aquamarine Guest Bedroom and now the Copper Bedroom. That’s how it goes sometimes. Co-ordinating several projects at the same time can be a bit of a nightmare. But then you get a triple whammy of interior eye candy to gorge on. Before Today’s it’s the Copper Bedroom. The bedroom on the 2nd floor of the Edwardian property i’ve been working in for nearly the last two years now. Blimey! You can catch up with all the befores for this latest project, here and here. Drawing Room | Upper Brook St These are the two rooms that sit directly beneath the Copper Bedroom. On the ground floor it’s the Drawing Room and the floor above …